3 ms·
There were a lot of reasons for concise, pithy code in the 1970s. Poor keyboards was not one of them. (in fact, some of the best keyboards I've ever used were
by jackhack 8y ago
There were a lot of reasons for concise, pithy code in the 1970s. Poor keyboards was not one of them.
(in fact, some of the best keyboards I've ever used were of the old mechanical-switch variety found on IBMs, teletypes, and various CRT terminals. Even the worst of the bunch were a lot better than the almost-legendarily-bad macbook keyboard I'm using at this moment.)
- emodendroket 8y agohttp://www.catonmat.net/blog/why-unix-commands-are-short/ http://www.catonmat.net/blog/why-unix-commands-are-short/ > I was watching videos about my favorite topic, UNIX history, and found a talk by Hendrik Jan Thomassen. He's the UNIX pioneer in the Netherlands and has worked with Thompson and Ritchie in the past. He says the real reason why UNIX commands like ls, cp, mv, etc., are short is because PDP11 console keys were super hard to press. You'd get knuckle pain if you typed too much. So to save your fingers, all the commands were designed to be as short as possible. True or not, that's a fun story. The page includes a video.
- jackhack 8y agoThat's a great contribution. Thank you! And all this time I thought they were mere stylistic choices. As an undergraduate, I was relegated to the teletypes or a modem on one of the 10 dialup lines -- upperclassmen and grad students got first pick of the CRTs and there was rarely a free one available. I suppose I get the last laugh, as I didn't developer carpal tunnel syndrome. Coding assembly on a teleterminal using greenbar paper now seems equal parts primitive, badass, and insane.